What the demise of the shepherds of old can tell us about automation

Camera IconAustralia was once home to tens of thousands of shepherds - their demise can tell us a lot about where automation will lead us.Picture: Illustration: Don Lindsay

The year 1851 was a turning point in this nation’s economic history. It was the year the road between Sydney and the inland town of Bathurst was clogged by men heading towards Lewis Ponds and Summer Hill creeks.

They were in search of gold after the first “official” discovery of a payable deposit was revealed.

Several months later it was Victoria’s turn as the fledgling colony transformed on the back of the precious metal in fields across Bendigo, Ballarat and Clunes.

The transformation brought by the discovery of gold would work its way through the colonies for another 40 years (culminating in the discoveries in WA).

That transformation included a big change to our employment structure. Up until 1851 more than one in 10 Australians followed a particular calling. They were shepherds.

In an estimated population of 400,000 Europeans, we’re talking tens of thousands of people whose job description was to watch over sheep.

Oh the irony of a farming-based party that watched on as a complete form of employment was wiped out by technological change now deciding its time to raise concerns.

They were pivotal to the economy. Australia had, since the 1820s, become a wool-producing powerhouse that pushed aside competitors from Germany and Spain to supply the spinning mills of England.

With sheep run over huge squatter runs, many shepherds were needed to keep an eye over the flocks.

Fast-forward to the most recent Census conducted in 2016. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, not one person in the country listed themselves as a shepherd.

Where did the shepherds go?

Some did what a great many other Australians did back in the 1850s.

They started chasing gold.

But the biggest change came via legislation and technology. The legislative change was the move by colonial governments to break up the squatter runs through closer settlement.

To delineate smaller farms, landholders started putting up fences. And if you had miles and miles of fencing to control your flock of sheep, you didn’t need shepherds.

The WA Nationals recently took issue with Rio Tinto over the big miner’s encouragement of automation in the mining sector.

Rio has made no secret of the way it is trying to reduce its costs by embracing autonomous trucks and trains.

The company’s iron ore chief executive, Chris Salisbury, noted in these pages how Rio’s operations in the Pilbara are “fast becoming the Silicon Valley of mining”.

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But the Nats, while not “philosophically opposed” to automation, had a crack at Rio by complaining that its use of driverless trains and trucks will lead to “lost jobs” in WA.

Oh the irony of a farming-based party that watched on as a complete form of employment was wiped out by technological change now deciding its time to raise concerns.

More generally, however, the issue of automation and what it means to our working lives have been present for centuries.

The issue appears to be the way automation or technology is hitting middle-income employment rather than low-skilled workers (many of Australia’s shepherds were former convicts).

The OECD estimates about 14 per cent of jobs in the world’s richest nations such as Australia are “highly automatable”.

Another 32 per cent “could face substantial change in how they are carried out”.

To put that in a local context. There are about 1.3 million West Australians in either full or part-time work.

Based on the OECD’s estimates, that means about 182,000 jobs could be taken over by a machine with another 416,000 at risk.

Those sort of figures look frightening.

But tell that to all the shepherds out there. Oh, that’s right, they don’t exist any more.

Instead, the shepherds went into other occupations — many of which were created because of the gold boom. That’s not saying it wasn’t easy. It required new skills.

Just like today.

The OECD points out that it doesn’t believe we face a jobless future. Technological breakthroughs create new jobs.

In the case of shepherds, people had to learn how to properly fence properties (and some of the shepherds became farmers). It was also no coincidence that manufacturing grew in Australia through the 1850s and 1860s.

Closer to today, all the systems used by Rio so it can drive its automated trains and trucks require people with specialist skills.

“Jobs are likely to be created for the development, implementation, maintenance and use of new technology,” it notes.

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Education systems will also have to change, both at the school level and at the adult level for those whose jobs are being swept away from them.

Here, the OECD made the worrying observation that on-the-job training was three times less likely for people whose jobs faced automation than those whose occupations were automation-proof.

People whose jobs may disappear face tough decisions, such as moving to a new location.

That would be similar to all those prospective gold miners who, looking to make their economic way in the world, came to Victoria and NSW in the 1850s when a trip to the nearest town let alone to another continent was dangerous in the extreme.

According to the OECD, new policies aimed at training and income support for those who lose their employment to automation will have to be developed by nations.

Camera IconThe automation of our mining industry will change the way people work - but history shows the workforce has adapted.Picture: Supplied

It says that, ultimately, while many jobs will go, total employment will continue to grow. The economic history of WA, of Australia and of the world since the industrial revolution is testament to that.

The technological and communication revolution we have been going through for at least the past 20 years is no different.

That doesn’t help families facing uncertainty over their job prospects.

These people and communities face real questions that can’t be swept away by political or economic rhetoric.

Similarly, it’s a disservice to these people and communities to play on those fears without proposing a solution or simply hectoring companies that embrace new technologies.

It’s a test of political and economic leadership. And, across so many parts of the world, that political and economic leadership is failing.